I went to track down the exhaust leak I have and found that sections of the Y pipe have been replaced with new pipe. I also found that the front cats are missing and have been replaced with straight pipe. Didn't find the leak but now I have a new problem. New OEM cats are insanely expensive, aftermarket cats are either questionable quality or still rather expensive, and buying used cats is illegal in Florida. Anybody want to sell me a "lamp shade" in the shape of a catalytic converter? (kidding [not kidding]). I'll have to put the cats on the back burner for now.

The welds on the tubing that was replaced look good from what I'm able to see, so I'm guessing the leak is from the gaskets. I see all kinds of different gaskets listed for the exhaust flanges... a thick donut (90917-06078 [replaced by [color=#333333]90917-A6003]), a thinner donut (90917-06059), a weird one that looks like a short piece of pipe with a bulge in the middle (17451-50020), and a standard 2.5 inch 2 bolt gasket that Amazon says fits somewhere. Can anyone tell me which gaskets go where?

This weekend I plan to do the shopvac up the tail pipe with soapy water test to see what exactly is leaking. But even if it's a weld that's leaking I'll still have to take the exhaust down to have the weld fixed and I'll need new gaskets to put it back up. Unless the original gaskets are reusable with some Ultra Copper RTV?

For the future project of replacing the missing cats, are there any suggestions on which aftermarket cats to go with? I saw that someone here has been using a Davico Y pipe and third cat for 40k miles with no issues.

And lastly, are there any tips or tricks for getting the exhaust down off of the manifolds, or is it pretty straight forward?

 

exhaust gaskets usually cannot be reused . Aftermarket cats can probably work, but i dont have any experience with them